Goodbye
by Sshpadoinkel
Summary: Angelus, Darla and Holtz, Rome 1771. Continues the flashback story in Offspring (Angel 3x07). Angelus decides they let Holtz off too easily the first time.


Goodbye  
  
Rome 1771  
  
- Angelus, you should not be up and about so soon. You need more time to recover from Holtz' torture.  
  
- I think I should be up, Darla. I have been lying here for a whole day without hurting anyone. It will not do.  
  
- There is my sweet boy! But it will be a few more days before you are back to full strength. You can not go out and fight yet.  
  
- Darlin', you know as well as I that you do not need to fight someone to hurt them. Besides, you need not worry. I only wish to go talk to someone. And that someone is right now even less fit to fight than I am.  
  
- And who did you have in mind?  
  
- A man who is right now recovering from an arrow wound to the chest and a broken jaw.  
  
- You mean.... ?  
  
- Yes, darlin'. I want to talk with our good friend Holtz.  
  
- It was only yesterday I pulled you from his clutches. Why do you want to see him again?  
  
- Like I said; to talk with him. And hurt him. You said yourself he is nearly family, and that is what families do; hurt each other.  
  
- His roman friends caught you while you were at full strength. Now you are weak. What if he is waiting for you?  
  
- That is the beauty of it, darlin'; he is not expecting us. He knows you could have easily killed him yesterday but choose not to. And you did the right thing not to kill him, I might add. It was foolish of me to even suggest such a thing, I was a wee bit out of my mind because of those long hours of torture. But since we did not kill him, he will expect us to flee Rome. To continue the game we have played with him for years now, with him chasing after us all over the world. He will not expect us to come to him.  
  
- "Us", precious?  
  
- Yes, of course. You would not miss a chance to cause Holtz more pain, would you?  
  
- Of course not. But what do you want to say to him?  
  
-I want to say goodbye.  
  
- I must say I am wee bit disappointed in you, Holtz. I know you did not expect us to come visit you, but still… to stay at an inn where any vampire can just walk right in and not even a weapon within arms reach?!  
  
- What do you want, Angelus?  
  
- Ah, I was hoping that broken jaw would not prevent you from talking. That is good. It is not amusing to hurt someone who is all silent.  
  
- Is that why you are here? To finish what Darla over there, yes I can see you even in that dark corner, began yesterday? Torture me? Kill me? Now I am the one who is disappointed, Angelus. This is so out of character for you. Unless you are fighting or feeding you never just kill anyone. You always hurt and frighten your victims first. But you know perfectly well that no harm you can do to my mind or body will make any real impression on me anymore. I am beyond such simple cares.  
  
- Quite right you are, my lad. You know me well, but you still have not grasped the meaning of this little visit.  
  
- But you intend to enlighten me, I suppose?  
  
- Oh yes. And please do not embarrass yourself by interrupting me with any attempted attacks. Darla has gathered all your weapons. And even though neither you or I am in the best of shape right now, she is. She can break both your legs in a heartbeat. Can you not, Darlin'?  
  
- Gladly so, precious. I do dislike discourtesy.  
  
- Just state your business, Angelus. Quickly, if you do not mind.  
  
- Of course, Holtz. A wounded man needs his rest. You can go back to sleep soon.  
  
- Most kind of you. So, if you have no plans for physical violence, what is it you want to tell me then?  
  
- I want to say goodbye.  
  
- Meaning what exactly?  
  
- That this will be our last meeting for a long time.  
  
- So you plan to run again? What makes you think I will not be able to track you this time as I have in the past? The two of you are never able to hold a low profile for very long. The bodies in your wake always give you away sooner or later, and then I will be there.  
  
- True. You can track us as long as we stay in Europe. But it is far more difficult for you to work outside Europe. You admitted yourself that you lost our tracks in North Africa. And Darla and I are going to the far off parts of the world again. We have not yet decided where, but it will be far from here and we will not be coming back soon.  
  
- So the mighty Angelus will run off and hide in some far away corner just to escape me?! Do you not even feel the tiniest bit of shame in being so easily driven from your home ground by a mere human?  
  
- Holtz, you still do not quite understand how Darla and I feel about you. Why do you think we have allowed this game of ours to continue for so long when we could have easily killed you years ago? Because you are a good man. Unlike some of those other small vampire hunters we have come across, you were never driven by some need to prove that you were "a big man". You simply wanted to protect innocent people from evil demons such as us. And on top of that you were a devoted husband, a loving father and a good Christian with a strong faith. A man who had so much, who was so much, how could we possibly resist taking our time in taking all that away from you?  
  
- And you believe you have succeded, Angelus?  
  
- Of course we have. Did you not say to me just the other day that there is nothing you want with your family gone? Killing them was a pleasure, but picturing you in our minds was even better. First your fear for your loved ones when you found our note. Then your grief when you found Caroline dead. Your relief when you briefly thought Sarah to be still alive. And finally, oh joy, your horror when you discovered that the apple of your eye was now one of us. Tell me, Holtz, how did it feel having to kill your own daughter?  
  
- That thing was no longer Sarah!  
  
- No. But she still looked like Sarah, did she not? She still sounded like her. Smelled like her. Felt like her. And you had to destroy her. That hurt even more than just losing Caroline and little Daniel, did it not?  
  
- You do not honestly expect me to give you the satisfaction of answering that question, do you?  
  
- No, but the look on your face tells the story better than your words ever could anyway. The man you were died that day. Before that day you fought to protect. You fought for those you loved. Now you only fight for yourself. For revenge. We made you a lesser man, but a grater enemy. You love noone anymore, and that is good. Love is a weakness. You never had any chance of defeating us while you allowed foolish notions of love to drag you down.  
  
- Foul creature. You have no soul. You can not feel love yourself, so you degrade it in others. Why do you not just admit that you are envious of humans? You have the memories of the human being you once were, but no longer his feelings. And some part of you longs to have those feelings back.  
  
(laughter from both Angelus and Darla)  
  
- Dear me, Holtz, you really do not know Angelus and I as well as you think. Or to be exact, you do not know the humans we were. What you said may be true about other vampires who were better human beings than us, but Angelus and I never loved anyone, not even when we were humans! Why do you think he and I match each other so well? Why do you think I chose to make him a vampire in the first place? It was not just because he was beautiful. I recognised myself in him. I saw in him the same angry passion, the same lack of concern for people around him that I had always felt myself as both human and vampire. He and I are a perfect fit, but we do not love each other. We share the same taste in pleasure and pain, and we have an eternal game going between us, trying to outdo us self and outdo each other. But as you know, when you caught up with us in that barn in France, I did not hesitate one second in taking off with our only horse, leaving my darling boy behind in order to save my own life. He gave me several pleasurable rounds of punishment for that later, of course, but we both knew he would not have hesitated in doing exactly the same thing if I had not though of it first.  
  
- I could not have said it better myself, darlin'. So, Holtz, do not presume that we are envious of human love. We do not really understand what love is. We can simply see that it is something very precious to humans, and therefore it is pleasurable for us to take it away from you. But simply making your life loveless was never enough for us.  
  
- Really? Then what pray tell was your goal, Angelus?  
  
- To take everything from you, of course! Even after your family died you still had two valuable things left; the respect of people and vampires all across Europe. And your faith. Two very different things, but oddly enough we could take them both away from you the same way. Through time. Seven years has passed now since we killed your family, and though you have hunted us through thousands of miles, it is becoming obvious to all that you will never succeed. And now we are leaving Europe. We will not be coming back for a long time. Long time in human terms that is. Fifteen years maybe. Can you imagine what that will be like, Holtz?! Waiting and searching, year after year, with no results. Your thirst for revenge will slowly drive you insane. You will ask God how he can hold a protecting hand over evil demons like Darla and I, but you will never receive an answer. And in the end you will have only two choices.  
  
- You really think you know everything, do you not? I admit you are diabolically cunning, but there are things you do not know about human nature and never will learn.  
  
- But I know you. What Darla and I are doing to you is so simple that there is no room for error. Even telling you all about it beforehand leaves you no alternatives. The one thing you can do is go on as you have for years. But as the years will go by and you can feel your body grow old and weak your hatred will eat you up from the inside. When you lie on your death bed, too weak to even wipe your own ass and all creatures of the night have long ago stopped fearing and respecting you, and the only feeling you arouse in your fellow man anymore is pity, then we will be there and laugh at you. You will die cursing us, and cursing your uncaring God for allowing this to happen. And we have won.  
  
The other thing you can do is realize that human means simply is not enough to defeat creatures such as us. You will need to become more than human. Or less than human, depending on how you look at it. Then, maybe, you have a chance of defeating us, but you still lose. For in striking that deal with the Devil, you will have sullied your most precious Christian soul.  
  
- He is right, Holtz. Is it not a delightful irony? That very thing that makes you better than us, your soul, is also what stops you from defeating us. Your soul is your weakness. You used to have a heart filled with such love. For your family, for your friends and people in general, for God. Because of that love we have been able to hurt you in ways you can never hurt us. Because we have never loved anyone and never will, there is so little you can take away from us. And even what little harm you can do, you can only accomplish by becoming what you despise the most. A creature without soul, like us. A creature who may seem to be alive on the outside, but who is really dead inside.  
  
- Darlin', is does not seem like he has any comments to our last words. I guess that means he understands. No need to dally here anymore then. Holtz, Darla and I will be on our way. If ever we meet again, I hope you will be the most evil creature of us. But for now we just need to ensure that the two of us will get a proper head start. See this as a symbolic underlining of what I told you, that no matter what you do it will lead to the same results. You were a good boy and did not interrupt us much, but we will give you that same gift you would have received if you had. Come, Darla. Let us give our good friend a last thing to remember us by and break both his legs. In case the pain makes you pass out, let me say to you now that most important word I came to say: Goodbye.  
  
The End  
  
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